Dan O’Bannon Dies at 63
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Dan O’Bannon, the acclaimed science fiction/horror film screenwriter who was best known for writing the blockbuster hit “Alien” and who also directed and wrote the zombie fest “The Return of the Living Dead,” has died. He was 63.
Mr. O’Bannon, whose credits include co-writing “Blue Thunder” and “Total Recall,” died Thursday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica after losing his 30-year battle with Crohn’s disease, a chronic form of inflammatory bowel disease, his wife, Diane, said.
His career began with the low-budget 1974 sci-fi film “Dark Star,” a dark comedy directed by John Carpenter. The film started out as a University of Southern California student project and was co-written by Mr. O’Bannon and Carpenter from their original story. (Mr. O’Bannon himself played what has been described as a “reluctant, flunky astronaut.”)
Born Sept. 30, 1946, in St. Louis, he studied fine art at Washington University in St. Louis and attended MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., before receiving a bachelor’s degree in film from USC in 1970.
Diane O’Bannon, who first met her husband at USC in 1970, described him as “sweet, generous and one of a kind.”
“He was a brilliant fine artist and a brilliant writer and idea person,” she said. “He studied history, he studied physics; he was a highly intelligent person. He was really a futurist.”
In addition to his wife, Mr. O’Bannon is survived by his son, Adam.
Source from sfgate.com | photo from denofgeek.com
